Thursday, October 12, 2006

Stop Talking and Kill Sauron

Now for Act Three. Act Three starts with the warriorhero, who has been getting more proactive towardsaccomplishing his goal, becoming the martyr. He hasgone through whatever transformation he needs to,using info learned in the last Act, to drive towards aresolution and defeat the antagonistic force thusgetting what he needs. But first, more on how Act Twoends.

Plot Point #2 ends the second act and announces thebeginning of the third. Vogler terms this as thehero's death and rebirth, in figurative terms. Frodotangles with Shelob and doesn't fare well. Sammysaves the day and the hero now knows that everythingmay have to be sacrificed to dunk the stupid ring.Aragorn reveals himself as the King of Everything andadmits that he must march on the Black Gate in orderto save humanity.

Another thing that has to happen right before we getto Plot Point #2 is a lull. This is the darkest hourwhere all seems lost. Ringwraiths ride unchallengedacross the battlefield. Not only is Frodo dead butthe orcs of Cirith Ungol (or is it Minas Morgul?) aregoing to eat him. This is usually the event thattriggers the hero's transformation. Very often amajor sidekick or perhaps the mentor will die here.

So Act Three (or the fourth part) opens with atransformed hero who has new power and is ready togive everything. In Love Actually, this takesplace when Hugh Grant starts knocking on doors lookingfor his love interest. In Notting Hill thistakes place when Hugh Grant starts driving through thestreets looking for his love interest. This part iscalled, not surprisingly, the resolution.

A resolution must resolve things. If you have a bignovel, there will be a lot of things to resolve. Thispart takes up about a quarter of your length. Theimportant thing to remember here is that all the cardsare on the table. Everything is revealed, except in amystery, and no new information or characters areuncovered. As far as plot devices go, the hero hasall the means to achieve the goal. Sauron is toast.The Death Star is headed to the scrap yard. Somebodyis finally going to realize they love Hugh Grant.Whatever questions you brought up to make the storyinteresting, they get answered now. Good guy wins.Bad guy loses. Lights come up and you think, "Holycow, did I drop a lot of popcorn."

Now, a good resolution will still leave a readerwondering how this is all going to happen. Everyoneknows the hero will succeed in the end. Unlike reallife, fiction has a climax and an ending. But we'renot sure who's going to survive with him. You shouldhave plenty of sidekicks around to kill off at thispoint. Most importantly, the hero needs to be thearchitect of his own victory. Even if the cavalry, orperhaps the Rohirrim, rides over the hill to save themall it is still the hero who kept it together longenough to beat the bad guy.

Like any structure description for writing a story,this can be wiggled around a bit. However, you moveoff of it at your peril. There is a reason thisstructure describes so many memorable and commerciallysuccessful stories. There is a reason it has beenaround since Homer. It has all the beats thatresonate with a Western audience. It is comfortableto watch. Therefore it is satisfying, allows us ourcatharsis, and fills up our need to be entertained.All stories can benefit from a structural analysisusing this form.

This sure turned out to be a long series of posts.I've got to review them now and make sure I didn'tforget anything. I took another look at a novel Itried to finish a couple years ago and I'm noticingthat there are several places where I didn't followthe structure. Sure enough, those were all the placeswhere I felt bogged down and directionless.